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Has anyone else noticed that in first person view, the height of the camera is level with your shoulders instead of your eyes? (For nords and orcs at least, the two I've played.) I have no idea where a setting for this could reside, whether ini, esm, exe, or the player models themselves.
You can verify this by standing by a brick wall, noting which brick is in the center of your vision, and then pulling out to 3rd person - it's the brick by your shoulder. I am afraid that method isn't very accurate. I looked at the camera position in the skeleton.nif files for 1st and 3rd person and the 1st person camera position is actually a little higher than the 3rd person and both are well above shoulder level. At least when you define the shoulder through the skeleton node.
I'm not sure the camera is off for all races. I suspect there is a set camera height for all characters regardless of height and if you happen to be playing a taller character like a male altmer, first person camera will be at about shoulder level. But playing a Breton or imperial, you may not even notice anything off.
I'm playing a Breton and while I'm not sure if the camera is actually at the right level or not, it does feel much too low. This bothers me so much, so if anyone finds a method to change the camera height I would much appreciate it! When i get to the blacksmiths house in riverwood and he talks to his nephew inside i always sit at the table with them. From my judgment of eye level for them with the table the table seems like it’s at an appropriate height which is about mid/upper stomach. But when i sit at the table in 1st person i feel like a kid at the table. Everything looks higher than it should be.
I think this a perspective issue since Skyrim has a very low FOV (65) which pulls objects right up to you and make them look bigger. Change the FOV to 75 and tell me it doesn't lessen the effect dramatically. Don't get me wrong the camera height is still an issue but the perspective is compounding the effect to make the 1-3 inches off the camera is to look like more than that. When I stand and talk to someone and look straight forward i look in to their chest in first person, if you go to third person i can clearly see that my character has the same height as the NPC I'm talking to, so something isn't as it should be with the camera view.
This is the thing, in Oblivion playing a Nord you were taller than other races except Altmer which was tallest. In this game playing a Nord I am no taller and sometimes feel shorter than the housecarl dumer in whiterun, Irelith whatever her name is. That irks me a lot, I am a NORD for crying out loud, and why is it all races have the same height now.